


if you asked me to stay

by starlightment



Series: Gift Fics [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cute, Fluff, Future Fic, Gay Keith (Voltron), Idiots in Love, Kissing at Midnight, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post Season 8, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightment/pseuds/starlightment
Summary: It’s not the life Lance wants to be living. There’s just something missing. And once he figures out what it is – orwhoit is – all he has to do is ask for it.





	if you asked me to stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crowning-art](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=crowning-art).



> Written for @crowning-art <3

**. . .**

 

On a hazy, humid summer night, Keith kisses him for the first time.

It’s the kind of night that feels thick and damp enough to drown in. The kind of night that clings to skin, and dapples along hairlines. The kind of night that starts as a harmless stroll down to the dock, to watch the sunset paint the water gold. The kind of night that ends with an impromptu swim when Lance trips on a wobbly wooden board, drags Keith in shortly after by the leg of his jeans, laughing and splashing until the sun goes down, and the crickets croon their melancholy tune.

Still giggling and drenched, they scamper back up the hill, dash across the field of juniberries, and stop to catch their breath on the front porch of the farmhouse. All the curtains on all the windows have been drawn to a close. Inside, it’s dark and quiet and probably still smells as sweet as the _torticas de moron_ that Lance’s mother had baked as an after-dinner treat.

Lance tries the front door, and admits, breathless, “I forgot to bring a key.”

“Shit,” whispers Keith, before they both dissolve into another helpless fit of laughter, covering their mouths, and snickering into their hands.

And maybe that’s when Keith first notices it — or, when he first allows himself to _acknowledge_ that he notices it — and _it_ being how handsome Lance is right here, right now, with his blinding grin, and his glowing cheeks, and his eyes crinkling around the edges with amusement. He’s got more moonlight on his face than freckles, which have long since faded with the midday sun, but Keith knows that they’re there, just beneath the surface, waiting to be heralded by the light of a new morning.

( _You have so many freckles_ , Keith had pointed out just earlier that day. _Sun kisses_ , Lance had corrected him with a smile that warmed something within Keith’s gut.)

Lance, with his flannel drooping off his right shoulder, unbuttoned down to his undershirt; thin white fabric that melts against his chest and stomach like a second skin. Lance, with his hair a mess, and a mixture of sweat and lake water dripping down the bridge of his nose. Lance, blinking his too-bright eyes, and asking, “What?”

Keith, standing there, taking in the sight of him, and adoring every inch of it.

And then he’s leaning in until their noses bump, until he can’t tell where he ends and Lance begins, until their rapid heartbeats sound the same in his ears, and kisses him, soft. Lance’s lips are a little bit wet, and taste like chapstick. And, when they part, they’re swollen, and pink, and at a loss for words.

Seconds later, when they kiss again, it’s Lance who drags him in by the front of his soaked shirt, and captures his lips with newfound fervor. It’s enough to make Keith gasp in response, swallowed up by the warmth of Lance’s mouth, and he shivers from head to toe as he pins Lance to the front door, kissing him back with equal enthusiasm.

Keith’s fingers tangle in the curled ends of Lance’s hair, like his life depends on it. Lance’s tongue pushes its way past Keith’s lips, like he just can’t get enough. And they both lose themselves in each other, bodies pressing snugly, because they both know that it’s true — Keith is leaving in the morning, and they’re running out of moments to steal on these warm summer nights.

A whimper vibrates in the back of Lance’s throat when Keith begins to move with a bit more urgency, tugging at Lance’s flannel until it hangs down around his elbows. And Lance’s hands slide up the back of Keith’s t-shirt, grazing muscle and scarred flesh, memorizing as he goes. They’re dizzy with it, this maddening desire. Dizzy, and desperate, and coming undone at the seams. 

“Lance —” is all Keith can breathe against his lips, but it comes out sounding ragged and wrecked, not gentle like he wishes it would be. He wants to be gentle with Lance, but he’s never quite learned how — not when the universe has never been gentle with him. “ _Lance_ —” 

All at once, the porch lights flicker on, and the night shatters around them like cracked glass as they leap apart. Lance’s mother’s voice whispers tiredly from behind the front door.

“Niños? Is that you?”

Lance clears his throat once, twice, before answering, “Yeah, mama, we got locked out.”

They’re ushered inside, offered towels for their dripping hair, and then sent upstairs for bed. Keith, still reeling, staggers down the hall toward the guest room until Lance reaches out and grabs his wrist.

 _Say it. Say the word_ , Keith begs with his eyes.

Lance’s face is half-shadowed in the dark hallway. His lips are still glossy and red. It takes every ounce of strength not to kiss him again. “Stay safe out there,” Lance says quietly, and nothing more.

There’s an ache in Keith’s throat from all the unspoken things he keeps trapped inside his mouth. Because he’s not gentle, and neither is the universe. And _stay safe_ is a far cry from _stay with me_ , and Keith knows it like it’s written in the stars.

He leaves the next morning before the sun rises. Before he gets to see the sun kisses reappear on Lance’s cheeks. Before he gets the chance to say goodbye.

 

* * *

  

It takes a whole month for Lance to forget what Keith’s lips taste like.

One more for him to stop feeling them against his own, a phantom touch, when he’s moments away from sleep.

Four months go by, and Lance can finally sit by the lake again without hearing the sound of Keith’s laughter clang around his skull like bells.

Six months. Snow falls for the first time all winter, dusting the juniberries with shimmering white, and all Lance can think about is kissing snowflakes off Keith’s face.

Seven months. Old habits die hard.

Eight months. Heartbreak dies even harder.

Nine months. Lance is numb.

 

* * *

 

They talk every day.

Well, Lance talks to _her_ every day. The rest is just a whisper in the wind. Or a shiver through the leaves. Or sometimes it’s the sweet smell of a blossoming juniberry, so subtle and fleeting that he dares to blame his imagination. 

But still — he talks.

And he knows that somewhere, _somehow_ , she’s listening.

“You’d love it here,” he tells her on a particularly cloudless afternoon as he’s watching the speckled sunlight dance across the top of the lake.

It shines brighter than any star-scattered nebula he’s ever seen. And he’s seen _many_. And each one still reminds him of her.

“I mean,” he’s quick to correct, the faintest of smiles curling the corner of his lips. “At least I _hope_ you would. I like to think you’d like being here. Y’know. With me. With us.”

A gentle breeze whips through, ruffling his hair, and rippling the calm water’s surface.

Lance huffs a laugh, and answers the unheard question with a quiet, “Of _course_ I like it here. What’s not to like? I get to be with my family. The land’s beautiful, there’s fresh air, and sunshine, and no looming threat of war and destruction. Thanks to you.”

He’s met with silence. An uneasy kind that seeps through his skin, settles into his bones, and tugs at his grin until it’s slanting downward again. 

“But —” he tries, with a voice that rattles around inside his throat like loose change. “— I dunno, ‘Lura. Sometimes I still think I’m going crazy. Crazier than Coran when he got that creepy space bug stuck in his brain.”

He musters up the strength to chuckle again, and, this time, he imagines that she joins him, soprano to his baritone. But it stings when he realizes that he can’t quite hear the sound of her laughter anymore. That, too, is forgotten. It rings in the background now, too tinny and tenuous to possibly be hers. His lips clamp down around the rest of his strained amusement.

“Am I missing something?” he wonders aloud.

The world sits still, waiting for her reply.

“It feels like everyone else has everything all figured out,” and his fingertips come to brush along his cheekbones, warm, and smooth, and pulsing blue. “So why don’t I?”

 

* * *

 

 _You’re getting too predictable_ , Keith wants to say against the silence when he finds Lance sitting on the roof of the barn that evening. The words come to him in such a heady rush, like his mind is stuck on autopilot, before he stops to wonder if he’s _allowed_ to think those kinds of things anymore. 

And then it’s something like doubt, and guilt, and heart pangs knotting up and pressing hard against his throat, gone dry and struggling for breath. 

Because Keith has been _gone_ , and Lance has been _here_ , and ten months is a very long, mutable while.

Slowly, Keith is scaling the ladder, as unsure of his standing as he is sure of it — miles and miles from the line he crossed that day, when he kissed Lance’s lips, and the world tipped slightly sideways — until he catches sight of Lance’s moon-soaked face. His eyes are wet and rimmed with red, and he’s wiping them clean with the heel of his hand as the ladder creaks beneath Keith’s weight, signaling his arrival.

“Oh,” mumbles Lance, his voice weaker than Keith ever remembers hearing it. “Hey.”

“Sorry,” Keith replies. “I can —”

(— go. _Leave_. He wants to think he’s outgrown that part of himself, but maybe that’s all Keith has ever been doing. Going, leaving, _running_ —) 

“Don’t go,” Lance says, like he can read Keith’s mind, the way he’s always been able to. He winces, then, and adds abruptly, “I mean — you can stay, if you want.” 

It’s the first time he’s ever explicitly asked him to stay, and Keith thinks he likes the way it sounds. The way it makes something sing inside his chest. The way he wishes he could nestle it gently against his heart, the way some might press flowers between the pages of a journal — though Keith has little desire to crush something so precious and divine into brittle flatness, anyway. 

He thinks back to that day again, and thinks about how he might’ve stayed if Lance had asked him to.

(He might’ve done _anything_ if Lance had asked him to.)

Keith crawls the rest of the way up, leaving enough distance between them to stretch endless, but as he gazes up at the yawning expanse of galaxy swimming right above their heads, he feels a pinch inside of him that resembles _want_. Right here, on earth, he’s about as close to the stars as he can get, and he yearns to touch them again. Like a part of him belongs up there. A part of him will _always_ belong up there.

The other part belongs — _somewhere else._

“You don’t visit enough,” says Lance. Simple. Unfiltered. “I know you’re busy, but — it’s not enough.”

Ten months, Keith thinks, is a very long time to miss someone.

And it feels even longer to think that someone isn’t missing _you_.

Keith leans back onto his elbows, and smiles through the feeling of something wonderful burrowing inside of him, taking root, and _blossoming_.

“All you had to do was ask.”

 

* * *

 

The next time they kiss is two months later, when it’s summer again, and the juniberries are in full bloom around their ankles.

It’s with their arms around each other like tethers, and their foreheads leaning together. It’s with sunshine in their eyes, and promises on the tips of their tongues, and a fullness in Lance’s chest that he hasn’t felt in a long while.

It’s with a learned tenderness in Keith’s voice when he whispers, “Come with me.”

And it’s with unwavering certainty in Lance’s when he answers, “Okay.”

It sounds even better than _stay_.

A collision of their lips, and a revelation in Lance’s heart that sparks up a storm.

 _Oh_ , it seems to throb. 

_This is it._

A breeze flutters by, and it smells just like juniberries.

_You’re what’s been missing._


End file.
